Alice called up to him. “Could you direct me to the nearest station, please, sir?”
The officer bent toward her, pointing, and spoke too quickly for her to clearly understand—but his extended hand at least gave her a sense of the direction in which she should head. She would ask again when she was nearer to the station, if need be. Holding her already mud-tinged skirt, Alice made her uncertain way to the station house.
Alice had never even seen a station house before. In spite of her uncertainty, this one could not be missed. Her apprehension rose as she neared the towering brick fa?ade and stared up at the high arch rising half a story above the daunting reinforced doors. Her legs grew leaden as she mounted the imposing stairs. She put her foot on the last step and reached for the door just as a tired-looking uniformed policeman, hardly more than a boy, burst through it. Without changing his expression, he held it open and nodded before releasing it. Through the dirty cross-barred windows, she watched him race down to the street. When she turned, it was to face the intimidating height of the front desk, its dark, wide-rimmed wood scratched and worn. The officer on duty gave her no notice. He finished whatever he was writing before raising his unreadable face to stare down at her. Uncertain, she gazed first in one direction, then in the other, along the empty hallways. Somewhere far into the building, a hard slam reverberated.
The officer cleared his throat but said nothing, only waited. Alice realized he was expecting something from her.
“Good afternoon, Officer.”
He nodded.
“Please, sir, I need to report someone missing.”
“Someone?”
Alice assessed the hallways again. “My husband,” she said.
The officer scratched something into his book, then waited.
“You see, he was due home three days ago.” She felt the strength go out of her voice.
“Three?”
“Yes, sir. Three. And I have had no word from him.”
“And you wish to file a missing person report?”
“Yes.”
The policeman scratched something else, then said, “If you will wait, please.” He disappeared. Another officer took his place and nodded, unsmiling. What were they doing?
Alice stood, with nothing better to do than examine the cool stone floors of the hallways and the high windows, which were covered with heavy metal screens. Anxiety flooded her. Perhaps she should not have come. After a bit, she began to walk back and forth, but soon she heard a heavy knocking at the high desktop. She looked up to see the second officer’s scowling face. With one finger he motioned her back into place. She stood still, willing herself to breathe slowly. Minutes later, the original officer returned and motioned her to follow him. Alice turned and almost tripped on her skirt as she tried to keep up with his pace.
The office into which he led her was as sparse and bare as possible while still being functional. There was a scarred table-style desk; a straight-backed chair, to which he motioned her; and a swivel wooden chair, occupied by a pleasant-faced man with unruly white hair, who glanced at her, then shuffled a set of papers and laid them in front of him.
“I have been given to understand that you wish to report a missing person,” he said. “Would that be a child or an adult?”
“My husband, sir.” She was puzzled at having to repeat this.
“Adult, then, I presume.” He dipped his pen into the inkwell and scratched at the form. “Age, please?”
“Thirty-five, I believe.”
“You believe? Don’t you know your own husband’s age?”
“Thirty-five, sir. It’s thirty-five.”
“Full name?” He dipped his pen into the inkwell again.
“Alice McGuire Butterworth, sir.”
“No, Madame. His full name, if you please.” He looked at her with somewhat undisguised disdain.
“I beg pardon, sir. Howard. His name is Howard McKee Butterworth.”
“Do you happen to have any identification papers with that name?”
“No, sir, I do not,” she said. She slipped her fingers up and down the drawstring of her handbag, feeling the nubbiness.
“Not your marriage certificate, Mrs. Butterworth?” There was an edge to his voice now that did not match his at first pleasant face.
“I did not think to bring it.”
“The length of your marriage? Is that one you might know with certainty?”
“Two years this past July nineteen.”
The officer lowered the papers and flipped two pages back on a desk calendar. “You were married on a Thursday? That seems an unusual day for a wedding.”
“Because of his work and the train schedule.” Alice struggled to describe his work as a cotton broker, traveling back and forth every few days between Chicago and Memphis. “Where the mill is. And the cotton brokerage. Also, where his mother lives,” she added, her fingers twisting in her lap. She felt her forehead getting damp and pressed the back of her glove against the edge of her auburn hair.
The officer held up his pen, motioning her to slow down, silencing her while he scratched away at the form. Finally, she had given all the information she could, which in truth did not amount to much. A description: light brown hair; eyes the same hue; five feet, ten inches in height; medium frame; no distinctive identifying scars. He could be anyone, she thought, surprised at how ordinary he seemed in her description. Her depiction did not make him appealing. In truth, to her he wasn’t. But her feelings about Howard had no bearing on his disappearance. There was little more she felt the need to tell the officer, other than verifying again that the last time she had seen him was when he’d left with his small leather suitcase one week prior. The officer stood, nodded, and motioned toward the door. He did not show her out.
*
Descending the hard steps to the street, she felt as invisible as she had while growing up on the plains with a father who essentially ignored her and two older brothers who mocked her in subtle ways—she was a girl, after all, and not much help to them on the farm. She had often felt invisible; sometimes she had wished she were. As she’d grown older, Alice had become so accustomed to her assumed lower status that she had failed to notice how it pained her. It pained her now. She stepped out into the street, where mud ruts sidled the planks laid in long rows to prevent carriage and wagon wheels from getting bogged down. At least if the driver were careful. She lifted her skirt and stepped around and over the pervasive puddles, with a renewed awareness of the oppressive odors of the streets—of manure and rotting garbage—as she made her way home. The Chicago heat was dogged. The early fall had brought no relief. Alice waded through it and up the narrow stairwell to her second-floor oven of an apartment. She was grateful, at least, it was no higher up. She slipped the key in the lock and was home.
CHAPTER 4